Teachers Condemn Proposed Tests for Reception Aged Children

Teachers have spoken out against government proposals to introduce testing for children in reception.

Parents around the country no doubt groaned collectively as news came in about plans to introduce tests for reception aged children. Now, teachers and early years organisations are speaking out against OFSTED's Bold Beginnings report.

In response to the report, which was published in November 2017 and suggests that pupils should be assessed in reception, Keeping Early Years Unique has co-ordinated a Collective Open Letter calling for the report to be withdrawn.

To date, the letter has attracted over 1,850 signatories from reception teachers, governors, professors, researchers and leading early years organisations across the UK. It strongly criticises the recommendations of OFSTED's report, stating:

"We have one of the youngest school starting ages in the world. In most countries children do not start school until the age of six. These countries have comparable or better educational outcomes than us. In England we have seen a leap in the demands of the National Curriculum for Key Stage 1. However, these demands do not change the basic developmental needs of young children."

Keeping Early Years Unique has warned that what this testing would lead to, would be "a narrowing of the reception curriculum to focus on literacy and maths; more adult-led 'formal' teaching; and less recognition of the potential benefits of learning through child-initiated play."

The letter also highlights that before publishing the report, OFSTED only visited 0.25% of schools, making the research flawed and possibly biased. It suggests that it is possible that OFSTED only visited schools where the approach to teaching was "congruent with the recommendations the report would later make."